Emerging from a door I was unaware existed, Johnny Madden, lead singer and one-third of Baby Strange, looks to be relieved to be out of Tipsy‘s downstairs confines. “It’s too warm down there,” he remarks as we wander to one of the outside tables to wait for the McCann brothers– Connaire (drummer) and Aidan (bassist) to join us.
Founded in Glasgow in 2012, it had taken Baby Strange a while to come about– despite the trio knowing each other since they were kids. Connaire and Aidan have known each other for “pretty much ages” as Connaire puts it, by way of indicating they’re siblings, and they met Madden because “he lived in the same area“. Despite knowing each other and going to a youth music club together, Connaire still says that it took them a “good few years to actually come together as part of a band.”
And lo, Baby Strange was born– a random band name assembled from words that they thought “sounded pretty cool together” and in no way a homage to T-Rex. “People seem to think it means that we are big T-Rex fans, but it’s not that.” Johnny insists when I bring it up, “we just wanted something that sounds good and only found out about it being a T-Rex track a couple of months ago.”
The early days of Baby Strange seem to be built from the concept of going out and just having a good time… That is to say when I ask them about their influences when they started they quote “hungover jamming” as one. “When we first formed a band, we were going out a lot and so we were always hungover and then ended up just jamming like that.” Johnny explains, and both of the McCann’s are in agreement. “Some of our best ideas came from those bedroom hangover jamming sessions. Like those ideas that you come up with at 7 in the morning and then end up having to record on your phone. They really influenced us.”
Where the band formed and grew up also had a hand in steering Baby Strange’s musical process. “We looked at the way everyone else was doing it and wanted to do it the opposite way from the people around us.” Connaire begins before Johnny takes over. “When we were starting up, the local bands that we loved were already big, like Franz Ferdinand and stuff. So we ended up missing all of that stuff, so when we started a band we just decided that we’d just go and do it and just started out the opposite way to others and it worked.”
“I think a lot of people have gone out and done that though because there’s a lot of garage bands in Glasgow right now, doing the same thing as us. They’ve obviously all thought the same thing as us.” Connaire interjects, provoking a wry laugh of acknowledgement from the other two members of the band.
After coming together as a band, getting a band name and deciding how to go about the musical process, it was time to start building themselves a musical catalogue. The band are understandably reluctant to give their sound a genre label (“it’s just something that it is“) and instead define it as “sincere, youthful and loud“. Journalists aren’t quite so quick to stray away from labels and Baby Strange have had all sorts of genres thrown at them including punk, garage and scuzz– which go some way to describing the unique sound that they produce. Their two singles thus far encompass all these genres (and more) that have been thrown into a blender and thrown it at ‘high’. ‘Pure Evil’ is a snarling punk protest for the disillusioned youth whilst ‘Friend‘ is more garage-indie but just as ferocious. “For ‘Pure Evil’ [we recorded it because] it was our best song at the time. ‘Friend’ wasn’t going to be released– we were going to do something else but then we were told that we had to pick one to record within the next two weeks and…”
“Live for ‘Friend’ it came across so strong.” Connaire explains before Johnny takes back over. “When you see something like that, you just go ‘fuck it’ and do it. But yeah, it was a good move.”
Speaking of their live show, Baby Strange have one of the most high-octane shows that you can believe in– as evidenced by their show later that evening and from their description of the Glasgow show from the previous night (“there were tables being smashed, people smashing in to each other… they were so in to it and having fun.”) “We have this mentality where we want to make sure that we give the same sort of show no matter how big the crowd is… that we approach all of our shows in the same mindset. One night we could be playing to 1000 people and the next night 10 but we’d still want to give them the same level of show. We’d give them our all, give it 110.”
“Does that mean we give less than Palma Violets?” Connaire asks, “I mean, they give everything 180…”
So far Baby Strange have been surprisingly lucky with their live shows. After playing a handful of their own headline shows they started picking up support slots– most notably Palma Violets (whom Baby Strange will be touring with again later this year)– an experience that the band freely admit has altered their own shows off the back of it.
“Yeah, it showed us what it was like to do loads of shows in a row. Before that we’d play a show and just end up being skint for ages before being able to play another show. But when we were lucky enough to go on a long tour it wasn’t like that and so we could start working on our live show a bit more and approach it in a way we’d never thought about because before it had just been like a night out and then it was suddenly a reality.”
“It made our own headline shows better because it gave us some exposure. I mean there are kids that have seen us on tour with Palma Violets and they saw how crazy it was– so when they come to our shows they just kind of do it again and it makes it more fun.” Johnny adds for good measure.
Looking towards the future, everything is looking bright for the Glaswegian trio. After their tour with Palmas they are looking at doing “potentially more support shows” and “get out and play some more of our own shows until we get as good as can live.” There’s also some discussion of an album next year– Johnny saying that it is one of his ultimate goals as a band “[we want] to make that album and make it good– make a great first record.”
“And make it something we like and that other people like.” Connaire adds, “and to have a good time doing it.”
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